Monday, January 30, 2006

New Poll Shows Correlation is Causation

This is probably significant: New Poll Shows Correlation is Causation

The results of a new survey conducted by pollsters suggest that, contrary to common scientific wisdom, correlation does in fact imply causation. The highly reputable source, Gallup Polls, Inc., surveyed 1009 Americans during the month of October and asked them, "Do you believe correlation implies causation?" An overwhelming 64% of American's answered "YES", while only 38% replied "NO". Another 8% were undecided. This result threatens to shake the foundations of both the scientific and mainstream community.

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Explained pollster and pop media icon Sarah Purcell, "Now, with the results of the latest poll, we are able to determine that people's lack of belief in correlation not being causal has caused correlation to now become causal. It is a real advance in the field of meta-epistemology."

[snip]

Anti-correlationist Travis Seymour is more cynical. "What about all the previous correlational results? Do they get grandfathered in? Like, the old stock market/hemline Pearson's rho is about 0.85. Does this mean dress lengths actually dictated the stock market, even though they did it at a time when correlation did not imply causation? And what about negative and marginally significant correlations? These questions must be answered before the scientific community will accept the results of the poll wholeheartedly. More research is definitely needed."